Looking around at people, at all of humanity, I saw that people live and claim that they know the meaning of life. I looked back at myself: I lived as long as I knew the meaning of life. Faith gave both other people and me the meaning of life and the possibility of life. The essence of any faith is that it gives life a meaning that is not destroyed by death.
The smarter we are, the less we understand the meaning of life and see some kind of evil mockery in the fact that we suffer and die.
Sciences do not give an answer about the meaning of life, but only show that in the vast, open horizons with these help, there is no answer to this question.
The answers given by all sciences about the meaning of life are only identities.
Philosophy does not answer the question of the meaning of life, but only complicates it.
Five years ago, a strange state of mind began to take possession of me: I had moments of confusion, of stopping my life, as if I did not know how I should live, what I should do. ...These stops in life always arose with the same question: “why?” and for what?" ...These questions demanded an answer with increasing insistence and, like dots, gathered into one black spot.
Was it really only then that I came into the world for this short period of time to lie, confuse, do stupid things and disappear?
Our life is constantly an escape from ourselves, as if remorse haunts and frightens us. As soon as a person gets to his feet, he begins to scream, so as not to hear the speeches resounding inside... In this fear of exploring, so as not to see the nonsense of what is being studied, in this artificial leisure, in these fake misfortunes, complicating every step with fictitious fetters, we We go through life half asleep and die in a cloud of absurdities and trifles, without coming to our senses.
Human life, full of bodily suffering, which can be cut short at any second in order not to be the grossest mockery, must have a meaning in which the meaning of life is not violated either by suffering or by its short duration.
If man is only a corporeal being, then death is the end of something insignificant. If a person is a spiritual being, and the soul only lived temporarily in the body, then death is only a change.
For immortal soul you need something as immortal as she herself. And this thing, endless improvement of oneself and the world, was given to her.
The fear of death is only the consciousness of the unresolved contradiction of life.
The fear of death comes from the fact that people mistake only a small part of life for life, a limited part of it by their false idea.
The best proof that the fear of death is not a fear of death, but of false life, is that people often kill themselves out of fear of death.
Lying to others only confuses the matter and delays the decision; but a lie to oneself, presented as the truth, ruins a person’s entire life.
Don't be afraid of ignorance, be afraid false knowledge. All the evil in the world comes from him.
It is not the quantity of knowledge that is important, but its quality. You can know a lot without knowing what you really need.
The main obstacle to knowing the truth is not a lie, but the semblance of the truth.
The most pitiful slave is a person who gives his mind into slavery and recognizes as truth what his mind does not recognize.
A slave who is satisfied with his position is doubly a slave, because not only his body is enslaved, but also his soul.
The only meaning of human life is to improve one's immortal foundation. All other forms of activity are meaningless in their essence, due to the inevitability of death.
Last night I thought in a dream that the shortest expression of the meaning of life could be this: the world moves and improves. The main task is to contribute to that movement, submit to it and cooperate with it.
The meaning of life is revealed in the human mind as a desire for good. Understanding this good, more and more precise definition it constitutes main goal and the life's work of all mankind.
A person has in the depths of his soul an indelible demand that his life be good and have a reasonable meaning.
Salvation does not lie in rituals, sacraments, or in the confession of this or that faith, but in a clear understanding of the meaning of one’s life.
Faith is an understanding of the meaning of life and recognition of the responsibilities arising from this understanding.
True knowledge comes from the heart. We only know what we love.
The need for happiness is embedded in a person; therefore it is legal.
A person should always be happy, if happiness ends, look where you went wrong.
The meaning of life for each individual person is only to increase love in oneself; that this increase in love leads the individual in this life to greater and greater good.
Where there is love, there is God.
To love is good, to be loved is happiness.
Love creates life.
Love destroys death and turns it into an empty ghost; it turns life from nonsense into something meaningful and makes happiness out of misfortune.
Love is the essence of the soul; it must be strengthened and cleansed of all bad feelings, irritation and irony directed against a person.
Love is life itself; but not an unreasonable, suffering and perishing life, but a blissful and endless life.
Love cannot be harmful, as long as it is love, and not the wolf of selfishness in the sheep's clothing of love...
True love in itself feels so much holiness, innocence, strength, enterprise and independence that for it there is no crime, no obstacles, or the whole prosaic side of life.
True compassion begins only when, putting yourself in the imagination in the place of the sufferer, you actually experience suffering.
Only those who no one and nothing can stop them from doing what they want are free. There is only one thing: to love.
Good is the eternal, highest goal of our life. No matter how we understand good, our life is nothing more than a desire for good.
The good that you do from the heart, you always do to yourself.
There is one undoubted sign that divides people's actions into good and evil: love and unity of people increases the action - it is good; produces enmity and disunity - he is bad.
One of the most amazing misconceptions is the misconception that a person’s happiness lies in doing nothing. The good of people in life. And life is in work.
Nothing ennobles a person like work. Without work, a person cannot maintain his human dignity.
Pride is not at all the same as consciousness of human dignity.
A proud person respects not himself, but the opinion that people form about him.
Vanity is some kind of immature love of fame, some kind of pride transferred into the opinion of others - he loves himself not as he is, but as he appears to others.
Do not believe the words of either your own or those of others, believe only the deeds of both your own and those of others.
The most common and widespread reason for lying is the desire to deceive not people, but themselves. The root of evil deeds is evil thoughts.
All the misfortunes of people arise not so much from the fact that they did not do what they need to do, but from the fact that they do what they should not do.
People are not punished for their sins, but are punished by the sins themselves. And this is the heaviest and most certain punishment.
We do not like people because they are evil, but we consider them evil because we do not love them.
All people of the world have the same rights to enjoy the natural benefits of the world and the same rights to respect.
In order to make it easy to live with each person, think about what connects you, and not about what separates you from him.
There are no guilty people in the world.
Education seems to be a difficult matter only as long as we want, without educating ourselves, to educate our children or anyone else.
All education comes down to living well, being educated yourself: only through this do people influence others and educate them.
Be truthful even towards a child: keep your promise, otherwise you will teach him to lie.
In order to, despite this constant dissatisfaction with oneself, have a consciousness of the benefits being brought, one must have one quality. This same quality complements all teaching art and all preparation, for with this quality the teacher easily acquires the missing knowledge.
If a teacher did not feel a moment of boredom during a three-hour lesson, he has this quality. This quality is love. If a teacher has only love for the work, he will be a good teacher. If the teacher has only love for the student, like a father, mother, he will better than that a teacher who has read all the books, but has no love for either the work or the students. If a teacher combines love for his work and for his students, he is a perfect teacher.
Art is the highest manifestation of power in man.
Music is the highest art in the world. Music is a shorthand for feelings.
All art has two deviations from the path: vulgarity and artificiality.
Nothing brings people together like a good, harmless laugh. And bringing people together is the main task of art.
Progress consists in the increasing predominance of reason over the animal law of struggle. If a savage stops believing in his wooden god, then this does not mean that There is no God, but only that God is not made of wood.
Oddly enough, the firmest, most unshakable beliefs are the most superficial. Deep convictions are always mobile.
The grain is invisible in the ground, but only from it does a huge tree grow. Thoughts are just as imperceptible, but only from thoughts do they grow greatest events human life.
To believe in goodness, you need to start doing it.
The ideal is a guiding star. Without it there is no solid direction, and without direction there is no life...

7. The meaning of life.

A vain gift, a random gift,
Life, why were you given to me?
Alexander Pushkin

Whether life is worth living or not is the only serious question.
Albert Camus

Living is the same as loving: all reasonable arguments are against it, and all healthy instincts are for it.
Samuel Butler

Live unnoticed.
Epicurus

Man is born to live in the throes of anxiety and the lethargy of boredom.
Voltaire

A person has in the depths of his soul an indelible demand that his life be good and have a reasonable meaning.
Lev Tolstoy

Misfortune modern man great: he lacks the main thing - the meaning of life.
Ivan Ilyin

The meaning of life is like climbing a rope that we ourselves threw into the air.
Irvin Yalom

I have seen many people die because life was no longer worth living for them. From this I conclude that the question of the meaning of life is the most pressing.
Albert Camus

Victor Frankl

Anyone who understands that the meaning of human life lies in worry and anxiety will no longer be an ordinary person.
Alexander Blok

Is it not in vain that knowledge is useless
Are we disturbing our dormant spirit?
In those who look into the abyss,
She looks in too...
Igor Guberman

Do not necessarily strive to develop, to be exposed to many influences - all this is vanity. In humility, as in darkness, the heavenly light shines brighter.
Henry David Thoreau

... life has only one meaning - life itself.
Erich Fromm

And I gave my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and stupidity: I learned that this too is languor of the spirit; because in much wisdom there is much sorrow; and whoever increases knowledge increases sorrow.
Ecclesiastes

...not a single piece
Don't give up on your face
But to be alive, alive and only,
Alive and only until the end.
Boris Pasternak

If the finiteness factor of life deprived it of meaning, it would not matter when the end would come, whether in the foreseeable future or very, very soon. We would have to admit that the time when everything will end is not significant.
Victor Frankl

The disclosure of human potential according to the laws of his nature should be considered as the goal of human life.
Erich Fromm

The biggest bankrupt in this world is a man who has lost his enthusiasm for life.
Matthew Arnold

Being yourself does not solve problems. It simply opens up a new way of existence, in which there is more depth and strength of emotional experiences, more breadth and variety. The person feels more unique and hence more alone, but much more authentic...
Carl Rogers

The smarter we are, the less we understand the meaning of life and see some kind of evil mockery in the fact that we suffer and die.
Lev Tolstoy

The more persistently we search for the meaning of life, the less likely we are to find it.
Irvin Yalom

The meaning of life is self-expression. To manifest our essence in its entirety is what we live for.
Oscar Wilde
We hate incomprehensibility
in a roulette of joys and troubles,
we even look for meaning in death,
although he is not in life.
Igor Guberman

The essence of any faith is that it gives life a meaning that is not destroyed by death.
Lev Tolstoy

Not to suffer need and not to have surplus, not to command others and not to be subordinated - this is my goal.
Francesco Petrarca

He who hobbles along a straight road will outpace a runner who has lost his way.
Francis Bacon

The whole meaning of life lies in the endless conquest of the unknown, in the eternal effort to know more.
Emile Zola

To be in the world and not have anything to indicate your existence - this seems terrible to me.
Nikolay Gogol

The meaning of life lies in life itself, and not in the conclusions drawn from it. It is in experiencing the very flow of life.
Archpriest M. Dronov

Human life is like a box of matches. Treating her seriously is ridiculous. Treating someone frivolously is dangerous.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa

It's hard to understand God's plans, old man.
This sky has neither top nor bottom.
Sit in a secluded corner and be content with little:
If only the stage was at least a little visible!
Omar Khayyam

Man on earth is a worker assigned to the task of saving his soul.
Lev Tolstoy

I may not know the meaning of life, but the search for meaning already gives meaning to life.
Nikolay Berdyaev

I am convinced that the state of emptiness (“existential vacuum”) is a problem mainly for an intellectual and educated person. From my point of view, existentialism itself is in many ways a philosophy written by “eggheads” and for “eggheads.”
Gordon Allport

I saw: there is no greater good than to rejoice in one’s deeds, for this is man’s lot, for who will bring him to see what will happen next?
Ecclesiastes

There is nothing more stupid than to neglect the present in favor of the future.
Alexander Herzen

You can only be consoled when you understand that life is in the content, and not in the vessel.
Lev Tolstoy

Words are used to express meaning. Having comprehended the meaning, they forget about the words. Where can I find a person who has forgotten about the words so that I can talk to him?
Feng Yulan

The search for meaning is paradoxical: the more we rationally search for it, the less we find; the questions one asks about meaning will always outlive the answers.
Irvin Yalom

Sciences do not give an answer about the meaning of life, but only show that in the vast horizons opened with their help, there is no answer to this question.
Lev Tolstoy

Do not think that bewilderment at the meaning of human life and lack of understanding of it represents something sublime and tragic. The bewilderment of a person who does not understand what is happening and fusses among busy people is not something sublime and tragic, but something funny, stupid and pathetic.
Lev Tolstoy

If a person begins to philosophize, things smell like delirium tremens.
Jaroslav Hasek

Everything is important for a person, with the exception of his own life and the art of living. He exists for anything, but not for himself.
Erich Fromm

If we ask deep enough questions, there comes a point when the answers, if they can be given, kill.
John Robert Fowles

The only purpose of life is the process of existence itself, i.e. the eternal struggle for survival.
Sigmund Freud

To break is more effective than to resist,
Breaking is more romantic than saving.
Renouncing is more pleasant than insisting,
And the easiest thing is to die.
Novella Matveeva

I think specifically human manifestation not only to question the meaning of life, but also to question the existence of this meaning.
Victor Frankl

The meaninglessness of life is the only undoubted knowledge available to man.
Lev Tolstoy

Meaning is objective at least insofar as it can be “found” but cannot be “given.” In a similar way, only the objectivity of meaning is connected with the fact that it must be discovered every time and cannot be invented.
Victor Frankl

...no longer exists in the world effective assistance for survival even in the most dire conditions than knowing that your life has meaning.
Victor Frankl

The meaning of life is to love, create and pray.
Ivan Ilyin

The essence of any faith is that it gives life a meaning that is not destroyed by death (Leo Tolstoy).
The most serious problems of modern man stem from the fact that he has lost the sense of meaningful cooperation with God in His intentions for humanity (Fyodor Dostoevsky).
An atheist is an unhappy child who tries in vain to convince himself that he has no father (Benjamin Franklin).
Regular attendance at church is as incapable of making a person a Christian as regular visiting of a garage is incapable of making a person a driver (Albert Schweitzer).
The wonderful structure of the cosmos and the harmony in it can only be explained by the fact that the cosmos was created according to the plan of an omniscient and omnipotent being (Isaac Newton).
Do not say that the Lord is on your side, but rather pray that you yourself will be on the Lord’s side (Abraham Lincoln).
You need to defend God not outside, but inside yourself (Yann Martel).
If there is no God and our whole life is a second on the way from dust to dust, then what is everything for? (Mikhail Khodorkovsky).
Atheists are believers who do not want to be them (Stanislav Lec).
People are ready to argue about religion, write books about it, fight and die for it, but not live by it (Charles Colton).
Superstition is a religion for weak minds (Edmund Burke).
The moral code of the communist, which I studied, is completely copied from the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus Christ, and the Sermon on the Mount is written better (Gennady Zyuganov).
Before you love your enemies, try to treat your friends a little better (Edgar Howe).
The truth that sets us free is most often the truth that we do not want to hear (Herbert Agar).
Many believe in God, but not many believe in God (Marty Larney).
Christ expelled the traders from the temple, the traders became wiser and put on vestments (Horace Safrin).
Everyone adapts God to himself, and not himself to God (Vladislav Skripnichenko).
Jehovah, having created the world, said that it was good. What would he say now? (Bernard Show).
Atheism is a thin layer of ice on which one person can walk, and an entire nation will fall into the abyss (Francis Bacon).
Relying on God is the only way to believe in him, and therefore whoever does not pray does not believe (Petr Chaadaev).
The surest sign of truth is simplicity and clarity. A lie is always complex, pretentious, verbose (Leo Tolstoy).
Our lives should be the sermon, not our words (Thomas Jefferson).
Every serious natural scientist must be in some way a religious person. Otherwise, he is not able to imagine that those incredibly subtle interdependencies that he observes were not invented by him (Albert Einstein).
God is love; this is the only truth that I fully accept (Mahatma Gandhi).
People are not born Christians, they die Christians (Vladimir Borisov).
Christian immortality is life without death, and not after death (Petr Chaadaev).
The greatest deceit of the Devil is to convince us that he does not exist (Charles Baudelaire).
Many people look at God as a servant who must do all the dirty work for them (Francois Mauriac).
The only difference between a religion and a cult is the amount of real estate they own (Frank Zappa).
The more I study nature, the more I stop in awe at the works of the Creator (Louis Pasteur).
The Bible contains more evidence of authenticity than all of secular history (Isaac Newton).
Religion, art and science are branches of the same tree (Albert Einstein).
Live in search of God - and God will not leave you (Leo Tolstoy).
The spiritual component is being increasingly removed from the system of human ideas and motivations. As a result, the entire hierarchy of values ​​was distorted, the understanding of the essence of man himself and his life goals was distorted (Alexander Solzhenitsyn).
The more we learn about our universe, the more convincing the hypothesis of the existence of a Creator (John Lennox) becomes as an explanation of the reasons for our existence.
If God created man in his own image and likeness, then man repaid him in kind (Voltaire).
I am not obliged to believe that the same God who gave us feelings, common sense and reason demands that we renounce the use of them (Galileo Galilei).
The ministers of the church often allowed the people to take arms in defense of the cause of God, but never allowed rebellion against real evil and obvious violence (Paul Holbach).
We should be grateful to God for creating the world in such a way that everything simple is true, and everything complex is untrue (Gregory Skovoroda).
If you deprive people of immeasurably great things, they will not live and will die in despair. The immeasurable and infinite are as necessary for man as the small planet on which he lives (Fyodor Dostoevsky).
To say that religion is inaccessible to reason is to assume that it was not created for rational beings (Paul Holbach).
Thinking Christianity must be given the right to exist among believing Christianity (Albert Schweitzer).
He is not a heretic who follows Scripture according to his understanding, but he who follows the instructions of the Church contrary to his conscience and understanding based on Scripture (John Milton).
Is it not surprising that people so often fight for religion and so rarely live according to its precepts? (Georg Lichtenberg).
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind (Albert Einstein).
When the polemic between tradition and thought ceases, Christian truth and Christian truthfulness suffer (Albert Schweitzer).
Anyone who does not want to see anything other than chance in this harmony, which is revealed so clearly in the structure of the starry sky, must attribute Divine wisdom to this chance (Johann Mädler).
Science and religion are two complementary sides of the same cognitive act, the only act that can embrace the knowledge of the Supreme (Pierre de Chardin).
The Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. The best of the Savior of the world is conveyed to us through this book (Abraham Lincoln).
The connection between science and religion has never been as close and intimate as in our time. Scientists studying outer space have discovered so many wonderful and unexpected things that it is now more difficult to tell a scientist that God does not exist (Jules Duchesne).
I have known ninety-five outstanding men in the world, and eighty-seven of them were followers of the Bible (William Gladstone).
I can't imagine the universe and human life without any meaningful principle, without a source of spiritual warmth that lies outside matter and its laws. Probably, such a feeling can be called religious (Andrei Sakharov).
The day will come when they will laugh at the stupidity of our modern times. materialist philosophy(Louis Pasteur).
It is impossible to properly rule the world without God and the Bible (George Washington).
The order of the Universe, which unfolds before our eyes, itself testifies to the truth of the greatest and most sublime statement: “In the beginning is God” (Arthur Compton).
If we adhere to the principles taught in the Bible, our country will be in a state of constant prosperity (Daniel Webster).
Both religion and science ultimately seek the truth and come to the confession of God. The first represents Him as the basis, the second - as the end of every phenomenal idea of ​​the world (Max Planck).
If there is any value in all that I have written, it is because as a child my mother read passages of the Bible to me daily and daily required me to memorize these passages (John Ruskin).
In an infinite universe the activity of an infinitely perfect Mind is revealed (Albert Einstein).
All hope human progress based on the ever-increasing influence of the Bible (William Seward).
I am amazed that people choose to wander in the dark on so many important issues when God has given them such a wonderful book of revelation (Michael Faraday).
I cannot understand a scientist who would not recognize the Supreme Mind in the entire system of the universe, just as I could not understand a theologian who would deny the progress of science. Religion and science are sisters (Wernher von Braun).
It is impossible to mentally or socially enslave a people who read the Bible. Biblical principles are the basis human freedom(Horace Greeley).
A scientist has much more reason to believe in God today than he did 50 years ago, because science has now seen its limits (Hansjochem Outrum).
The existence of the Bible as a book is the greatest benefit to all people that mankind has ever experienced. Any attempt to belittle the Bible is a crime against humanity (Immanuel Kant).
The Bible is an extraordinary book. She Creature, conquering everything that opposes it (Napoleon).
Reading the Bible is an education in itself (Alfred Tennyson).
I needed an abstract, unattainably high ideal of faith. And having taken up the Gospel, which I had never read before, and I was already 38 years old, I found this ideal for myself (Nikolai Pirogov).
There are no contradictions between God the creator and what has already been discovered by us in the Universe; it is quite possible to be religious person and scientists at the same time (Peter Higgs).
Compared to the Bible, all human books, even the best, are only planets, borrowing all their light and radiance from the Sun (Robert Boyle).
No matter who attempts to portray the history of the universe, this attempt cannot present anything higher and more worthy than the biblical account of creation (John Dawson).
How insignificant are philosophical works, despite all their brilliance, in comparison with the Holy Scriptures! Can any other work, in so short a time, so exalt itself, being the work of an ordinary man? (Jean-Jacques Rousseau).
New Testament is the greatest book now and in the future for the whole world (Charles Dickens).
All human discoveries serve to provide a stronger proof of the truths found in the Holy Scriptures (William Herschel).
There is a book in which everything is said, everything is decided, after which there is no doubt about anything, an immortal book, a holy book eternal truth, eternal life- Gospel. All progress of mankind, all successes in the sciences, in philosophy lie only in greater penetration into the secret depth of this divine book (Vissarion Belinsky).
God! What kind of book is this Holy Bible, what a miracle and what power given to man with it! (Fedor Dostoevsky).
The teaching of the Bible is so intertwined with our civil and social life that it is impossible to imagine human life if this teaching were removed from it. With the removal of the Bible we will lose all foundation (Theodore Roosevelt).
The Bible speaks to the heart of every generation, and the measure for assessing the vitality and strength of a people will always be its attitude towards the Bible (Johann Goethe).
The Holy Scripture, no matter how much you reread it, the more you are imbued with it, the more everything is illuminated and expanded. This is the only Book in the world: it has everything! (Alexander Pushkin).
Only a superficial knowledge of nature can lead us away from God, but a deeper and more thorough knowledge, on the contrary, returns us to Him (Francis Bacon).
The Divine indicated to man a common goal - to ennoble humanity and himself (Karl Marx).
I attribute the greatness of England (Queen Victoria of Great Britain) to the Bible.
The Bible is the truest expression ever expressed by the letters of our alphabet, issued from the soul of man, through which, as if through God open window, all men can look upon the silence of eternity and recognize in the distance a glimpse of a long-forgotten home (Thomas Carlyle).
So great is my respect for the Bible, that the sooner my children begin to read it, the more confident I am that they will become useful citizens of their country and respected members of society (John Adams).
Let scientific culture develop, let natural science succeed in depth and breadth, let the human mind develop as much as it likes, but they will not surpass the cultural and moral level of Christianity, which shines in the Gospels (Johann Goethe).
Born in the East and dressed in Eastern uniforms and images, the Bible goes through the whole world with ordinary steps and enters country after country to find its own everywhere. She learned to speak to a person's heart in hundreds of languages ​​(Henry Van Dyck).
There is only one book - the Bible (Walter Scott).
Reading the Bible always gives the most real consolation. I don't know anything to compare it with. Both the Old and New Testaments equally strengthen the soul (Wilhelm von Humboldt).
A mathematician is unwise if he wants to measure the divine will with a compass. The same is true for a theology teacher if he thinks that one can learn astronomy or chemistry from the psalter (Mikhail Lomonosov).
The greatness and wonderful precision of the functioning of the Universe is the result of the action of natural laws, which God uses as an instrument (Igor Sikorsky).
People still have not found an excuse for why they crucified Christ, but they will do it again as soon as such an opportunity arises (Boris Krieger).
If they prove to me mathematically that the truth is not in Christ, I will prefer Christ (Fyodor Dostoevsky).
Respectable people believe in God so as not to talk about him (Jean Paul Sartre).
A terrible, insoluble question: how can smart, educated people - Catholics, Orthodox - believe in absurdities? church faith, can only be explained by hypnosis (Leo Tolstoy).
You should believe in what helps you live and not believe in what hinders you (Boris Krieger).
The Bible is the best of all books that ever was or will be known to the world... It teaches the best of all lessons that can guide man (Charles Dickens).
Two things always fill the soul with new and ever stronger surprise and awe, the more often and longer we reflect on them - this is the starry sky above me and the moral law within me (Immanuel Kant).
If religion is not in first place, then it is in last (Leo Tolstoy).
It is not our business to prescribe to God how he should rule this world (Niels Bohr).
In the Judeo-Christian religious tradition we find the highest principles that should guide all our aspirations and judgments. Our feeble powers are not sufficient to reach this higher goal, but it forms the sure foundation of all our aspirations and value judgments (Albert Einstein).

In a moment of indecision, act quickly and try to take the first step, even if it’s an extra one.

The need for happiness is embedded in a person; therefore it is legal.

The aphorism is almost best form for the presentation of philosophical judgments.

One of the most amazing misconceptions is the misconception that human happiness lies in doing nothing.

Beware of thinking that you have virtues that others do not have.

It's only a step from a five-year-old child to me. There is a terrible distance from the newborn to me.

Happiness is pleasure without remorse.

Happiness does not lie in always doing what you want, but in always wanting what you do.

If only people knew that the goal of humanity is not material progress, that this progress is inevitable growth, and there is one goal - the good of all people...

Only with strong, ideal aspirations can people fall low morally.

Vanity... It must be there characteristic and a special disease of our age.

One girl was asked what is the most important person, what is the most important time and what is the most necessary thing? And she answered, thinking that the most important person is the one with whom you are communicating at a given moment, the most important time is the one in which you are living now, and the most necessary thing is to do good to the person with whom you are dealing at every given moment.

He who does nothing always has many helpers.

Church. This whole word is the name of deception, through which some people want to rule over others.

A man must be a slave. The choice for him is only whose: his passions, and therefore people, or his spiritual beginning.

Man can serve for improvement public life only to the extent that he fulfills the demands of his conscience in his life.

Man is unthinkable outside of society.

A person is like a fraction, the numerator is what he is, and the denominator is what he thinks about himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.

A person who separates himself from other people deprives himself of happiness, because the more he separates himself, the worse his life.

A person who has stopped drinking and smoking acquires that mental clarity and calmness of view that illuminates for him all the phenomena of life from a new, correct perspective.

The more we love, the larger, fuller and more joyful our life becomes.

How better person, the less he fears death.

To believe in goodness, you need to start doing it.

Selfishness is crueler than personal selfishness. A person who is ashamed to sacrifice the benefits of another for himself alone considers it his duty to take advantage of misfortune, the need of people for the good of the family.

The aesthetic and the ethical are two arms of the same lever: as one side lengthens and becomes lighter, the other becomes shorter and heavier. As soon as a person loses moral meaning, so he is made especially sensitive to the aesthetic.

Language is a tool of thinking.

The power of one person over another destroys, first of all, the ruler.

You can only hate life due to apathy and laziness.

All thoughts that have huge consequences are always simple.

All people of the world have the same rights to enjoy the natural benefits of the world and the same rights to respect.

All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

It always seems that we are loved because we are good. But we don’t realize that they love us because those who love us are good.

Every openly expressed thought, no matter how false, every clearly conveyed fantasy, no matter how absurd, cannot fail to find sympathy in some soul.

The main obstacle to knowing the truth is not a lie, but the semblance of the truth.

The main property in any art is a sense of proportion.

The movement towards the good of humanity is accomplished not by torturers, but by martyrs.

There are two things a person should never be upset about: what he can help and what he cannot help.

In order to perceive other people's thoughts, you must not have your own.

To make it easy to live with every person, think about what connects you, not what separates you.
with him.

The good that you do from your heart, you always do to yourself.

If a savage has stopped believing in his wooden god, this does not mean that there is no God, but only that God is not wooden.

If people bother you, then you have no reason to live. Leaving people is suicide.

We must always marry in the same way as we die, that is, only when it is impossible otherwise.

Women, especially those who have gone through the men's school, know very well that talking about lofty subjects is just talk, and what a man needs is the body and everything that shows him in the most deceptive but attractive light; and this is exactly what is being done.

Knowledge without a moral basis means nothing.

Knowledge is only knowledge when it is acquired through the efforts of one’s thoughts, and not through memory.

Of the passions, the strongest and most persistent is sexual, carnal love, and therefore if passions are destroyed, and the last, strongest of them is carnal love, then the prophecy will be fulfilled: people will unite together, the goal of humanity will be achieved and there will be no reason for it to live.

Have a goal for your whole life, a goal for the known, a goal for the year, for the month, for the week, for the day and for the hour and for the minute, sacrificing the lower goals to the higher ones.

Oddly enough, the firmest, most unshakable beliefs are the most superficial. Deep convictions are always mobile.

No matter what you say, native language will always remain family. When you want to speak to your heart’s content, not a single French word comes to mind, but if you want to shine, then it’s a different matter.

The root of evil deeds is evil thoughts.

Short thoughts are good because they force the serious reader to think for himself.

To love means to live the life of the one you love.

People are not punished for their sins, but are punished by the sins themselves. And this is the heaviest and most certain punishment.

People learn how to speak, but the main science is how and when to remain silent.

People who live only by their feelings are animals.

Wisdom is to know what the work of life is and how to carry it out.

Music is a shorthand for feelings.

We do not like people because they are evil, but we consider them evil because we do not love them.

Real life happens where it is unnoticed.

Our good qualities harm us more in life than bad ones.

Do not believe the words of either your own or those of others, believe only the deeds of both your own and those of others.

The harm comes not so much from the fact that we do not do what we should, but from the fact that we do not refrain from doing what we should not do.

There are no guilty people in the world.

There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.

There are no situations and no matters so insignificant in which wisdom cannot be manifested.

No activity can be lasting unless it has a basis in personal interest.

Never bother someone else with something you can do yourself.

Nothing encourages idleness more than empty talk.

One hundred years have passed since the death of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy

- We understand that it is very wrong to approach literature from the position of “this writer is not a Christian, and that one is not a Christian. But this one believed poorly, not as faithfully and qualitatively as I did.” How can one correctly approach the legacy of such complex personalities, who also changed during their lives, who influenced society in their time, like Tolstoy, and who influenced both positively and negatively?

Priest Georgy Kochetkov: Any human personality is complex and contradictory, not absolute and imperfect within the framework of historical existence. Only in metahistory is the true face of man revealed, only the Court of God can make final assessments and reveal the fullness of the truth about each person. So our job is to humbly look at the fruits and rejoice at all the good that this or that person has, find this good, focus on it, and not on the shortcomings. Of course, we must take into account certain sins, vices or deviations from the faith when we read works that are somehow particularly related to this topic. But that rarely happens. Undoubtedly, we have different attitudes towards Tolstoy’s religious writings and artistic works, especially after his deviation towards a certain moralistic-theosophical side, i.e. actually in “Tolstoyism”. Even the novel “Resurrection” is an outstanding work from an artistic point of view, although it was he who gave rise to judgments about the non-Christian state of mind of Lev Nikolaevich. Be that as it may, Tolstoy is a brilliant writer, and genius is a gift from God. This is not just human talent, it is something that reveals aspects of life, gives such assessments that people have not been able to discover before. This is always a turning point in history. There are few geniuses - too few - and we cannot throw them around, we cannot forget that if the Lord gave a person such the gift, therefore, called for something greater than most other people. Tolstoy is not an evil genius. Yes, he is not a Christian in everything. Yes, he is not right in everything in his religious views. Much has been assessed by history as a mistake or an evasion. But he is not declared a teacher of the church, a teacher of the whole world. Nobody looks at him like that.

He said a lot of important and valuable things, especially when he touched on issues of mercy, kindness, openness to different currents of the spiritual heritage of humanity, and you need to discover and assimilate this for yourself. And what our Christian conscience does not accept, we can one way or another put in brackets.

- What about his excommunication? Was it there or not?

Priest Georgy Kochetkov: Tolstoy was not anathematized. He himself wrote about this in his response to the Synod. On the part of the church, everything was done in a rather compromise way, in order, rather, to warn the people about the danger of the errors of Tolstoy, who had then big influence on people's minds. But the church procedure of excommunication and anathematization was not carried out.

At that time, it was important to warn about the danger, first of all, the intelligentsia, which came into sharp conflict with the church. And Leo Tolstoy was, as it were, the banner of this conflict. Many people (he himself wrote about this) spoke out much more harshly than he did. Yes, he perceived Christianity incorrectly, but at the same time he said: I want to remain a Christian and serve God with my whole life, and I remain one the way I understand it, the way I can accept it from my heart and conscience.

It's important to remember where he went before he died. He did not go to his comrades, students, followers, but to Optina Monastery, and even through the Shamordino Monastery, where his sister was. He left Yasnaya Polyana reading The Brothers Karamazov. He called the Optina elder and waited for him, and only his immediate circle did not allow this meeting. These details, which are truly important for a person’s spiritual destiny, are often forgotten by people.

It must be said that even today many characters in the church are identified in relation to people like Tolstoy. Some are only ready to anathematize and burn heretics, while others are beginning to understand. And they come to the conclusion that we should under no circumstances interfere in the Court of God. The Lord is the last Judge! We must give God freedom to act, and Tolstoy gave a reason for this: by 1910 he had really changed a lot. It’s not that he was completely ready to accept the entire church life - he knew the shortcomings of the church, and she knew his shortcomings - but he did not insist on the positions that he showed in 1901. It is also important that the project prepared by Pobedonostsev for the Synod , was softened by the Synod itself already then, in 1901.

- For the whole world, Leo Tolstoy personifies the glory of Russian literature and culture in general. Thanks to him, Russian culture is perceived as a predominantly verbal culture. Now, when many political and social disputes associated with his name are a thing of the past and the context of the life of the church and society has become completely different, what can we, as believers, as members of the church, say about his significance for Russia?

Priest Georgy Kochetkov: I would not entirely agree with you that it is only thanks to Tolstoy that Russian culture is perceived in the world as a great and, first of all, verbal culture. She, of course, created “holy Russian literature” (T. Mann), but she also gave Andrei Rublev, and many other great painters, as well as great composers - Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, right up to Schnittke - and great, world-famous, figures of the Russian religious and philosophical revival - Berdyaev, Bulgakov... This is a culture capable of a great feat, which has become an example. I mean the feat of the Russian new martyrs and confessors. Russian saints, Russian philosophers and thinkers, Russian writers, composers, artists - this is the glory of the Russian people, the people who lived on our land right up to the communist hard times. Another thing is that O will now be with us and with our land, after overcoming this communist fever, this disease. This is problem. But this is not what we are talking about now.

We, as believers, need first of all to recognize the great importance of Tolstoy, to see the positive side of his work, his talent, and even his religious activity, which is the most controversial and, in fact, occupies a very marginal position in his life. Even in it one must look for a certain meaning, because it was a reaction to the vices of church and public life of that time. Tolstoy's spiritual influence, not so much religious as moral - both positive and negative - was enormous. I very much agree with Berdyaev, who believed that in the revolution, which became the spiritual suicide of the Russian people, the aspirations expressed and carried out by Leo Tolstoy were largely realized. It is clear that his name was used. It is rightly said that he would be horrified if he saw how his ideas were being implemented, and would never support this, because he was against violence in principle, and the revolution was built on violence and became the quintessence of this violence.

But we must think about something else - about what questions Tolstoy posed to us. After all, these questions related to the place of work in life, with simplicity in Christ, with universal ethical principles, which can appear in different forms, have not been answered.

We are still often too narrow And in our views both on our own and on the universal human heritage. We often find it difficult to resolve for ourselves the questions that Tolstoy posed. So you need to read Tolstoy, you need to reflect on him, just like Dostoevsky, Gogol and many others. By now, all the criticism associated with Tolstoy’s work is well known, and this enriches us. A lot of deep, serious things were said. And it is very important, when reading his works and applying your heart to the meaning and spirit that they contain, to sympathize with what Tolstoy writes about. It is also important to move forward. And we have every opportunity for this, if only we treat this deeply and sensibly enough.

It seems to us that when remembering Leo Tolstoy, it is important to give the floor to him himself. We are publishing a short excerpt from one of the novels to remember how the great writer treated faith and the Church at some points in his life.

However, listen,” Stepan Arkadyevich once said to Levin, returning from the village where he had arranged everything for the arrival of the newlyweds, “do you have evidence that you were in good spirits?”

No. And what?

Without this you cannot have a wedding.

Ah ah ah! - Levin screamed. “It seems like I haven’t fasted for nine years.” I didn't even think about it.

“Good!” said Stepan Arkadyevich, laughing, “but you call me a nihilist!” However, this is impossible. You need to fast.

When? Four days left.

Stepan Arkadyevich arranged this too. And Levin began to fast. For Levin, as a non-believer and at the same time respecting the beliefs of other people, presence and participation in all kinds of church rituals it was very difficult. Now, in that sensitive, softened state of mind in which he was, this need to pretend was not only difficult for Levin, but seemed completely impossible. Now, in the state of his glory, his blossoming, he will either have to lie or blaspheme. He felt unable to do either. But no matter how much he interrogated Stepan Arkadyevich whether it was possible to obtain a certificate without going to church, Stepan Arkadyevich declared that this was impossible.

And what do you care? O it - two days? And he's a sweet, smart old man. He will pull out this tooth for you so that you won’t even notice.

Standing at the first mass, Levin tried to refresh his youthful memories of that strong religious feeling that he experienced from sixteen to seventeen years old. But he immediately became convinced that this was completely impossible for him. He tried to look at all this as an empty custom of no importance, similar to the custom of making visits; but he felt that he could not do this either. Levin was, like most of his contemporaries, in a very uncertain position in relation to religion. He could not believe it, but at the same time he was not firmly convinced that all this was unfair. And therefore, not being able to believe in the significance of what he was doing, nor to look at it indifferently, as an empty formality, throughout this shit he experienced a feeling of awkwardness and shame, doing something that he himself did not understand, and therefore, as I told him inner voice, something false and bad.

During the service, he either listened to the prayers, trying to attribute to them a meaning that would not diverge from his views, then, feeling that he could not understand and should condemn them, he tried not to listen to them, but was busy with his thoughts, observations and memories, which wandered through his head with extreme vividness during this idle standing in the church.

He defended mass, all-night vigil and evening rules and the next day, getting up earlier than usual, without drinking tea, he came to church at eight o’clock in the morning to hear morning rules and confession.

There was no one in the church except a beggar soldier, two old women and clergy.

A young deacon, with two sharply defined halves of his long back under a thin cassock, met him and immediately, going up to a table near the wall, began to read the rules. As he read, especially with the frequent and rapid repetition of the same words: “Lord have mercy,” which sounded like “mercy, mercy,” Levin felt that his thought was locked and sealed and that he should not touch or move it now, otherwise confusion would result, and therefore he, standing behind the deacon, continued, without listening or delving into it, to think about his own things. “There’s a surprising amount of expression in her hand,” he thought, remembering how yesterday they sat at the corner table. They had nothing to talk about, as always at almost this time, and she, putting her hand on the table, opened and closed it and laughed herself, looking at her movement. He remembered how he had kissed that hand and then looked at the converging features on the pink palm. “He has mercy again,” thought Levin, crossing himself, bowing and looking at the flexible movement of the bowing deacon’s back. “She then took my hand and looked at the lines: “You have a nice hand,” she said.” And he looked at his hand and at short hand deacon. “Yes, now it will end soon,” he thought. “No, it seems, all over again,” he thought, listening to the prayers. - No, it ends; now he bows to the ground. It's always before the end."

Unnoticed, having received a three-ruble note in a plush cuff with his hand, the deacon said that he would write it down, and, briskly sounding his new boots on the flagstones of the empty church, he walked into the altar. A minute later he looked out and beckoned to Levin. A thought that had been locked up until now began to stir in Levin’s head, but he hastened to push it away. “It’ll work out somehow,” he thought and went to the pulpit. He entered the steps and, turning to the right, saw the priest. An old priest, with a sparse half-gray beard and tired, kind eyes, stood at the lectern and leafed through the missal. Bowing slightly to Levin, he immediately began to read prayers in his usual voice. Having finished them, he bowed to the ground and turned his face to Levin.

Here Christ stands invisibly, accepting your confession,” he said, pointing to the crucifix. - Do you believe in everything that the saint teaches us? apostolic church? - the priest continued, turning his eyes away from Levin’s face and folding his hands under the epitrachelion.

“I doubted, I doubt everything,” Levin said in an unpleasant voice and fell silent.

The priest waited a few seconds to see if he would say anything else, and, closing his eyes, said in a quick Vladimir accent with an “o”:

Doubts are characteristic of human weakness, but we must pray that the merciful Lord will strengthen us. What special sins do you have? he added without the slightest gap, as if trying not to waste time.

My cardinal sin there is doubt. I doubt everything and mostly am in doubt.

“Doubt is characteristic of human weakness,” the priest repeated the same words. - What do you mainly doubt?

I doubt everything. “I sometimes doubt even the existence of God,” Levin said involuntarily and was horrified by the indecency of what he was saying. But Levin’s words did not seem to make any impression on the priest.

What doubts can there be about the existence of God? - He said hastily with a barely noticeable smile.

Levin was silent.

How can you have any doubt about the Creator when you look at his creations? - the priest continued in a quick, familiar conversation. - Who decorated the vault of heaven with luminaries? Who clothed the earth with its beauty? How can we live without the Creator? - he said, looking questioningly at Levin.

Levin felt that it would be indecent to enter into a philosophical debate with a priest, and therefore said in response only what was directly related to the question.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Do not know? How then do you doubt that God created everything? - the priest said with cheerful bewilderment.

“I don’t understand anything,” said Levin, blushing and feeling that his words were stupid and that they could not help but be stupid in such a situation.

Pray to God and ask him. Even the holy fathers had doubts and asked God to confirm their faith. The devil has great strength, and we must not give in to it. Pray to God, ask him. Pray to God,” he repeated hastily.

The priest was silent for some time, as if thinking.

You, as I heard, are going to marry the daughter of my parishioner and spiritual son, Prince Shcherbatsky? - he added with a smile. Beautiful girl.

Yes,” answered Levin, blushing for the priest. “Why does he need to ask about this in confession?” - he thought.

And, as if answering his thought, the priest said to him:

You are about to get married, and God may reward you with offspring, right? Well, what kind of education can you give your little ones if you do not overcome the temptation of the devil, which draws you to unbelief? - he said with gentle reproach. - If you love your child, then you, like a good father, will wish more than just wealth, luxury, and honor for your child; you will desire his salvation, his spiritual enlightenment with the light of truth. Is not it? What will you answer him when the innocent little one asks you: “Daddy! who created everything that seduces me in this world - the earth, waters, sun, flowers, herbs? Are you really going to tell him, “I don’t know”? You cannot help but know when the Lord God, in His great mercy, revealed this to you. Or your child will ask you: “What awaits me in afterlife? What do you tell him when you don't know anything? How will you answer him? Leave him to the delights of the world and the devil? This is not good! - he said and stopped, bowing his head to the side and looking at Levin with kind, gentle eyes.

Levin did not answer anything now - not because he did not want to enter into an argument with the priest, but because no one asked him such questions; and when his little ones ask these questions, there will still be time to think about what to answer.

“You are entering a time in life,” the priest continued, “when you must choose a path and stick to it. Pray to God that He, in His goodness, will help you and have mercy,” he concluded. - “Our Lord and God Jesus Christ, by the grace and generosity of his love for mankind, forgive this child...” - And, having finished the prayer of permission, the priest blessed and released him.

Returning home that day, Levin experienced the joyful feeling that the awkward situation was over, and it ended in such a way that he did not have to lie. In addition, he had a vague memory that what this kind and sweet old man was saying was not at all as stupid as it seemed to him at first, and that there was something here that needed to be understood.

“Of course, not now,” thought Levin, “but someday after.” Levin, more than before, now felt that there was something unclear and unclean in his soul and that in relation to religion he was in the same position that he so clearly saw and did not like in others and for which he reproached his friend his Sviyazhsky.

"Anna Karenina", vol. 5, chapter 1

a lion